EdFirst – Unethical Telesales Practices

Dodgy unsolicited sales calls are pretty much the norm these days, and we tend to take them from granted, those of us who are savvy do not fall for them, but sadly there are still plenty of people out there who do get scammed and swindled out of their hard-earned cash by these tricky sales people. The more of us that document these scams and companies implementing them, the less effective they will be as more people get into the habit of searching online first for reviews.

I had a phone call recently from this chap at edfirst.co.uk (aka School Supplies Service), asking me if I did IT support for schools, and how he was looking for providers in my area as currently, they did not have any and the schools were in need of IT providers. He lamented how his company was the main supplier for schools and involved in all the tenders and how I would be listed as the “go to guy” on the school’s database for my entire area and would make a lot of money as a result. He also made a point of telling me they do not make any money from this and are not allowed to charge anything for this service.

I was still interested and listening at this point, but it all went downhill when he then went on to mention the company he had called before me, and how he had spoken to someone called “Tina”, but she needed to speak with her boss first, so he had called the next person on the list, which was me. He then proceeded to try to play me off against them, stating that the first one to sign-up would be the sole provider for my area, and I really needed to sign up right now or he would then call the next person on the list, and then asked me for a £500 registration fee.

Alarm bells now started to ring, as clearly any legitimate tendering service would not have any requirement for you sign-up there and then on the spot or lose your chance, and trying to play me off against someone else like that is quite clearly a dodgy and unethical sales practice, plus he had contradicted his earlier statement of them not making any money from this by asking me for £500. So I made my excuses and asked him to email the details over to me, so I could check up on this company.

I checked out the edFirst.co.uk website and it seems to be just another directory website targeted at schools, who do little more than supply a printed version of their directory to the schools. After a bit of googling, I found numerous feedback from others which confirmed my suspicions and those who had paid the fee to be listed had got no work from it.

I also called the IT support company he had tried to play me off against and spoke to Tina, and she confirmed the conversation and that he had tried exactly the same thing on her, and tried to play her off on the company he had called prior to calling her.

Needless to say I advised Dale that I would not be parting with my cash on this occasion.

Reviewing on Trustpilot

I did originally post my review on Trustpilot, but sadly Trustpilot is rather biased, and it is easy to get negative reviews removed, which is what EdFirst has done, including mine. I did try to re-post the review a few times, but alas Steve Meredith (The Director) kept reporting them and getting them removed, which is what resulted in my creating this post instead, as I do not like businesses who behave like this.

Sadly Mr Meredith now seems to have gone completely off the rails and started a bit of vendetta, making threats of legal action to get this post removed.

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8 Comments

Thanks Russ. I was getting suspicious of Ed First as it seemed much too good to be true. A quick Google search found your blog which confirmed my suspicions. I appreciate you taking the time to post and warn the unwary.

Hi Ed First called me as well. I told them call me on Friday. i google their reviews and found your article and found quiet more articles about this company. guy call kirk called i told them you have bad reviews about your company. he said this all non sense.

This company has costs us thousands in embarrassment,. they told me they had sudden interest in my postcode for services in the education sector. This instantly worried us about losing these schools & universities we already delt with. we have a government contract already to supply so when the lady at edfirst said there was schools and university’s looking in our area we instantly thought they were putting us on tender again.

After contacting all the establishments we had contracts we found this wasnt true at all.

the Managing director lost sleep over this company and we looked stupid believing what they said.

They phoned me too and told me they were called School Supply Services and all the rest of the fanny, I asked if their £500.00 cost included an enhanced background check because I would be entering schools and coming into contact with minors and vulnerble people. And they didn’t know and said it probably wouldn’t matter.

As my company already supply services to schools they said that i would still have to go in their list. I will further verify that it is a scam by asking the head teachers of the schools if they have ever heard of them the next time that I meet with them.

I had a call from this company this morning. The second she mentioned admin fee of £300.00 (PLUS VAT!) I thought ‘that sounds like a scam’. The details all sounded too vague, too ambitious (as mentioned above, one business/person for a whole city postcode? Major firms would think that was too much for an industry like education!)

The arrangments also sounded like a way to deny liability. (the school hires you, but you’re hired through them – who has liability?) it all sounds a bit too MLM.)

There was no asking about my qualifications, my background, my DBS check status, which are all things I’d expect even the most tenuously employed person involved with a school to provide.

I found myself wondering why if these businesses were looking for this work, they wouldn’t be hiring directly, given that freelancers are twice the cost of an employee?

It was definitely a case of ‘if it sounds too good to be true’ it is. I wouldn’t just willingly part with £300.00 (PLUS VAT!) for the promise of work.

Anyone reading this, just go talk to your local recruitment agency. They would never take money up front, and would have more opportunities for work.